Tony Blair At Leveson: David Lawley Wakelin Interrupts Testimony, Says Former PM Should Be Arrested As 'War Criminal'

A protester interrupted Tony Blair's testimony at the Leveson Inquiry on Monday, shouting: "The man is a war criminal!"

The intruder, a white male in his 40s, was forcibly removed from the room after entering through the non-public part of the Royal Court of Justice.

Before being wrestled out of the room, the protester shouted: "This man should be arrested for war crimes... JPMorgan paid him off for the Iraq War... three months after he invaded Iraq he held up the Iraq bank for £20bn. He was then paid $6bn a year by JPMorgan and still is... the man is a war criminal."

After the incident, a man identified himself to reporters as David Lawley Wakelin from the Alternative Iraq Enquiry. He spoke as security guards escorted him through the Royal Courts of Justice.

It is understood the protester, who burst into the hearing directly behind Lord Justice Leveson, managed to get past security-coded doors to access the judges' corridor leading to courtroom 73. He was subsequently arrested and released without charge.

Following the incident, a different protester threw an egg at the former PM's car as he left the inquiry, according to reports.

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Blair's time in front of Leveson has come to a close. Towards the end it was less of a grilling more of a cosy fireside chat.

Join us tomorrow when we will hear from education secretary (and former Times journalist) Michael Gove and home secretary Theresa May.

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Lord Justice Leveson just asked Blair what may have been the longest question ever asked. The line that will come as a relief to many was "I have absolutely no interest in imperilling the freedom of the press".

Perhaps it was inevitable. A protestor has burst into the court room: "The man is a war criminal" he shouts before getting bundled out of the room.

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Blair has returned to why he chose not to 'take on' the media upon coming to office.

"I was not going to have the Labour Party coming back into power with a programme of change for the coutnry and having the centre piece to do with media ownership, I thought that would have been a distraction and wrong," he says.

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Blair says new technology such has Twitter has fundamentally changed the way politics works as stories move much quicker.

"The business of politics has become acutely more difficult," he says.

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Blair tells the inquiry that his "minimum objective" in courting the Murdoch press was to stop it from "taring us to pieces" while the maximum was to get its support.

"I did not change our position on core policy issues at all," Blair says.

Tony Blair says there was " no deal" with Murdoch on media law in the UK "either express or implied".

"To be fair he never sought such a thing," Blair adds.

Previous Labour witnesses including Alastair Campbell, Lord Mandelson and Tessa Jowell have all been quizzed over whether Blair made a deal with Murdoch to pass legislation favoured by News Corp in exchange for favourable press coverage.

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After a short break Blair is back and now the questioning has moved specifically onto the Murdochs.

Blair says that if Murdoch had decided to "wage war" on New Labour then he would have stood up to him.

"If they had started to treat me as they had Neil Kinnock, I would have fought back in a very tough way," he says.